ragashree
Reason vs Being
- Joined
- Nov 3, 2008
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Quite an old poem this, one of my earlier ones, dating from when I actually wrote free verse sometimes. I read it again just lately and felt the impulse to post it for some reason...
We misunderstand:
Nature was never meant to be confined;
Regulated
Single moment petrified in time.
Spring sunshine on a rocky outcrop
mossy meadow covered
surmounting ancient limestone
hillside edge.
Windless for a change
This place is tamed
kept for benefit of tourists
people walking dog, or horses
grazing cows.
Hedgerows and walls spread on other hills around
not enclosed where it did not pay
Or what would be this reserve of birds, butterflies and flowers?
Benches to rest and signs to paint the way.
Today along the bridle path
Three white ponies trailed
in lazy file
idle chatter,
Woman and daughters well groomed
As ride horses in quiet places
But the youngest has not learned her status
speech almost yokel
once as the local
She will lose this fiction of belonging later–
We do not advance in this existence
by descending from the heights.
Our ancestors braved leaving wndswept sites
Where lonely trees are fixed in sway to the southwesterns
Building stone, slate and metal in the valleys below;
They cleared the forests
dark, forbidding places
Feeding and clothing a nation, this later
Race, across the silted fertile plains
To the Severn,
pale grey snake under rising haze.
These high places best abandoned
From the wandering sheep and cattle
To the wealthy, strong stone walls
hold back
no longer poor but noble Men.
Here, a pale remnant of Nature is stored.
We misunderstand:
Nature was never meant to be confined;
Regulated
Single moment petrified in time.
Spring sunshine on a rocky outcrop
mossy meadow covered
surmounting ancient limestone
hillside edge.
Windless for a change
This place is tamed
kept for benefit of tourists
people walking dog, or horses
grazing cows.
Hedgerows and walls spread on other hills around
not enclosed where it did not pay
Or what would be this reserve of birds, butterflies and flowers?
Benches to rest and signs to paint the way.
Today along the bridle path
Three white ponies trailed
in lazy file
idle chatter,
Woman and daughters well groomed
As ride horses in quiet places
But the youngest has not learned her status
speech almost yokel
once as the local
She will lose this fiction of belonging later–
We do not advance in this existence
by descending from the heights.
Our ancestors braved leaving wndswept sites
Where lonely trees are fixed in sway to the southwesterns
Building stone, slate and metal in the valleys below;
They cleared the forests
dark, forbidding places
Feeding and clothing a nation, this later
Race, across the silted fertile plains
To the Severn,
pale grey snake under rising haze.
These high places best abandoned
From the wandering sheep and cattle
To the wealthy, strong stone walls
hold back
no longer poor but noble Men.
Here, a pale remnant of Nature is stored.
)
